by Gary Chesla
She looked through the leaves and watched as the two men moved from the house towards the truck.
“They seem awful happy,” Fran thought. “Smashing up people’s houses must get them off.”
Fran watched as the two creeps walked to the front of the truck.
Fran was upset, but tried to calm herself down.
“Look on the bright side,” Fran said to herself, “if you would have been in the house when those two showed up, you would be dead by now. It could have been worse. At least you’re still alive.”
But as Fran watched the two men, tears began to flow down her cheeks and her heart sank as she saw what the men were doing.
They were putting her battery back into the truck.
A minute later, the truck’s engine roared to life.
Chad slammed the hood and walked around to the side of the truck and got behind the wheel.
Pete began to look around the yard, then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.
When Chad yelled something at him from inside the truck, Pete got in the truck and slammed the door.
Fran watched as her dad’s truck backed out of the yard, then sped off towards Twin Falls.
She set the dog on the ground next to her, pulled herself up on her feet and slowly walked back to the house.
She walked through the house in a stunned silence.
The furniture was smashed, pieces of furniture stuck out of the holes in the walls, the mirrors laid on the floor in pieces, the windows were all broken, the doors ripped from their hinges, the curtains were torn and thrown on the floor, nothing had been left untouched.
Fran was stunned, but had to smile as the little puppy happily snooped around through the debris.
Fran turned over the one kitchen chair that wasn’t wrecked and sat down and stared.
Tears flowed faster down over her face as she saw her CB radio on the floor under the table.
Not only was Fran’s house completely trashed, she was now cut off from the world, totally alone.
“Well, almost totally alone,” Fran thought as she looked down at the little, brown, black and white skinny six-month old Beagle puppy that sat in front of her on the floor wagging its tail.
She reached down and picked up the puppy and held it close to her.
“I think were both screwed little fella,” Fran said as she looked at the puppy and scratched its ears.
The little guy wagged its tail as it licked at the salty tears running down Fran’s face.
“At least you won’t have to worry about me eating you,” Fran said. “Beyond that, you would have probably been better off if you would have run away when you had the chance.”
Chapter 7
June 29th, Granite Mountain
Rogers and Davis stood behind Chervy and looked at the monitor.
“Damn, what a beautiful sight,” Rogers said. “I never thought I would see something like that again.”
“I’m glad you think a city full of dead bodies is beautiful,” Davis said.
“You know what I mean,” Rogers replied. “They aren’t moving or chasing anyone, and they aren’t heading our way.”
Chervy laughed, “I agree that it feels great to know that there isn’t anything out there chasing us, but I can’t quite call the sight I’m seeing beautiful.”
“Yeah, I think sick is a better description,” Davis added.
“Call it what you want,” Rogers smiled. “I’m just damn happy to finally see this. It’s better seeing thousands of dead bodies lying in the streets for a change than moving around. It makes me think that things are finally back to the way they are supposed to be.”
Doc, followed by Reynolds and Connors, walked into the room where the others were gathered around the computer laughing.
“It’s good to hear the sound of laughter again,” Doc said. “Hopefully that means that you have some good news for me.”
Chervy smiled, “How does that old saying go? I have some good news and I have some bad news. Which one would you like to hear first?”
“Let’s hear the good news,” Reynolds replied.
“OK,” Chervy said. “The good news is that for the last two days I haven’t seen a single infected body moving around out there. It looks like they have all finally died off.”
“That is good news,” Connors said.
Chervy looked at Doc, “However the bad news is that I haven’t seen a single human moving around either. I’ve seen plenty of birds and deer starting to roam around again, but no people.”
“I wonder why the animals never became infected?” Rogers asked.
“The only reason I can come up with is that the original virus was engineered to only affect humans,” Doc replied. “Apparently when the virus mutated, that part of the virus remained unchanged, thank God.”
“Yeah, think how much worse it would have been if all the animals and insects had become infected,” Davis said. “Nothing would have had a chance to survive.”
“But where are the survivors?” Chervy asked.
“Is it possible that no one else made it?” Davis asked.
“It’s possible,” Doc replied, “but I feel the odds are that there are others out there that lived through the virus.”
“But why haven’t I seen anyone?” Chervy asked.
“It could be that the satellite images are not detailed enough to find the few people that are still alive. The images were great when we were looking for the large masses of the infected that were moving around the country,” Doc replied. “But it is much more difficult to spot the movement of only a few people.”
“I can zoom in enough to see individuals moving around,” Chervy added. “But it will be like finding a needle in a haystack. It can be done, if you know where to look or you get lucky as hell.”
The doctor looked to be in deep thought.
“Waiting to be lucky could take forever, maybe too long if there is anyone alive that desperately needs help,” Chervy continued. “Doc, we talked a few days back about you, on one of your daily fireside chats, asking the survivors to build a fire at night so we could see if anyone was still out there. Since it looks like the infected have finally died off, maybe you could make that announcement tonight? The survivors wouldn’t be alerting the infected where they are hiding by lighting a fire like we were afraid of before.”
“That could work,” Rogers said.
“What do you say, Doc?” Chervy asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Doc replied. “It could work, but I think there might be a problem with that approach that I didn’t see before.”
“With the infected no longer being a threat, what problem could there be?” Chervy asked.
“For the last month, except for here at the facility, there hasn’t been any electricity,” Doc said. “If there are any survivors, how would they have kept warm or cooked their food?”
“They would have built a fire,” Rogers replied.
“Exactly,” Doc said. “But since we started using the satellite’s cameras to study the infected and look for survivors, have you seen any hint of fires?”
“No,” Chervy replied. “But maybe that was because the fires were too small for us to see them.”
“In a dark cave, lighting a match is as blinding as shining a spotlight,” Doc said, “If there were any fires burning at night, I think we would have seen something, but we never found a hint of any fire light at night.”
“Are you saying that no one else survived?” Davis asked.
“No,” Doc replied. “It just makes me ask, assuming that there are at least a few people that survived, why didn’t we see any light at night? Why didn’t anyone build any fires to keep warm or to cook?”
Everyone thought over the doctor’s question.
Finally, Rogers had an answer.
“Because they don’t have any matches,” Rogers said.
“If there is anyone else alive, I’m sure they would have found matches somewhere,” D
avis said. “There are millions of those little Bic lighters. Every store sells them, they would be lying around everywhere for the taking.”
Doc nodded.
“So, if we have people that are still alive and they have the means to start fires,” Doc asked, “then what would account for the fact that we haven’t we spotted any fires with the satellite?”
“I don’t know,” Chervy replied. “You have a good point. We should have seen something. That brings me back to the idea that no one else survived.”
“But we have to assume that at least a few others are still alive,” Doc continued.
“I give up,” Rogers replied and looked at Doc. “Why?”
“Fear,” Doc answered.
“They’re afraid of what?” Rogers asked.
“If we would have been out there instead of being in here, we would have been afraid of letting someone or something know where we were,” Doc replied. “Anyone smart enough to still be alive is smart enough to know that lighting a fire would tell everyone where they were.”
“They could have made a fire during the day when no one would see it,” Davis said.
“They might have done just that,” Doc replied. “If they limited their use of fire to the daylight hours when no one would see it, what do you think they would do if they heard my broadcast asking them to build a big bonfire at night so we could see where they are?”
“If they are afraid, they probably wouldn’t build a bonfire,” Davis replied.
“That is my conclusion also,” Doc said.
“But if they have been listening to your broadcasts, they would know that the infected are no longer a threat,” Chervy added. “So why would they still be afraid to build a fire at night like you asked?”
“When we first came to Granite Mountain, Davis, I believe when you saw the communications room, you thought we could broadcast where we were and that we had food for the survivors,” Doc said.
“I remember,” Davis replied. “But you said that wasn’t a good idea because if there were any gangbangers out there, they would try to take over the facility so they could have all the food for themselves.”
“If I am following you, Doc,” Chervy said, “the survivors would still be afraid to light a fire at night because it would let the bad guys know where they were hiding.”
“That’s what I concluded,” Doc replied. “If there are any survivors, some will be decent good people, and some will be thugs that are out for no one but themselves and don’t care who they have to kill to get what they want. If anyone survived, by now I’m sure the good decent people are well aware that there are a lot of thugs out there with them.”
“I see,” Chervy said. “So you don’t believe asking the survivors to build a signal fire is going to work.”
“No, at least not in a way that will produce desirable results,” Doc replied. “Either no one will build a fire, or those that do could be jeopardizing their safety. Even if it did result in us finding some survivors, they would be so spread out, it would be difficult to get to them to offer what little help we could give them.”
“So, we’re back to square one,” Davis said. “Then what do we do?”
Chervy smiled, “OK Doc, if you have put this much thought into this, then I know you have also come up with a plan that could get around these problems. What do you think will work?”
Doc nodded.
“I feel we need a plan that would not expose the survivors to any undesirables and a plan that would have the survivors form a group where we can help them all at the same time,” Doc replied.
“So, you’re saying instead of asking the survivors to build a fire, we ask them to all go to a specific place?” Davis asked. “That would certainly make things easier.”
“I was thinking of giving the survivors motivation to go to a place of our choosing,” Doc replied. “If we put together a food drop and then announce where we placed the supplies, it would encourage people to go there.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Rogers said. “We won’t have to spend days or months looking for any survivors if we can get them to come to us.”
“That still doesn’t solve the problem of the bad guys,” Chervy said.
“No it doesn’t,” Doc replied. “But what it will do is give us a few days to try and weed them out before the survivors come together.”
Chervy looked at Doc.
“It will probably take most of the survivors some time to make the journey to where the food will be,” Doc replied. “We should be able to spot them moving towards the supplies with the satellite. It will give us a few days to observe them before they arrive at the food drop. Hopefully we can identify the undesirables before they reach the meeting point.”
“After we identify the bad guys, then what?” Chervy asked. “Especially if there are more of them than there are of us.”
“We try to discourage them from going to the meeting point, or at least delay their arrival until we can contact the others. We’ll have to play it by ear. Hopefully we can organize the good guys to help fend off the bad guys.”
“Where do you think would be a good place for the food drop?” Chervy asked.
“My guess is that if there are survivors, the best place where they would have had a chance to avoid the infected would have been in the hills or mountains. The people in the cities probably didn’t have a chance. Chervy, pull up a view of the areas around Granite Mountain,” Doc said.
Chervy typed on the keyboard and the image on the computer screen changed.
Doc studied the screen for a few minutes then pointed to a spot on the screen.
“This area looks good,” Doc said. “Zoom in on that location.”
Chervy tapped on the keyboard and the area Doc had pointed to, began to be enlarged.
“Why there Doc?” Chervy asked.
“It’s far enough from us that no one should be able to follow us back to the facility or determine where we are coming from,” Doc replied. “I still believe we need to keep our location a secret until we can increase our numbers. It’s only about a thirty-minute flight by helicopter and the area is surrounded by hills and rural areas.”
Chervy zoomed in closer.
“It’s also a good distance from any large cities and should have given a better than average chance for some of the area population to survive the virus,” Doc continued.
As Chervy continued to zoom in on the area, Doc said, “Hold it there. Give me a better look at the area just above Route 84. Where is that?”
“It looks to be just south of a little town called Stone, Idaho,” Chervy replied.
“I think we should try there,” Doc said. “A rural population and the interstate will help to guide the survivors to that location. Farm lands surrounded by mountains should be a good test of our plans. Reynolds, Connors, how about putting together a crate with enough food to feed say thirty people for a week. That should be enough food to help anyone that shows up, but not a major loss if this doesn’t work out as planned. Can you put that all together and get it to Bay #47 in the next hour?”
“Sure Doc,” Reynolds replied. “Come on Connors, time to earn our keep.”
The two men quickly left the communications room.
“In an hour?” Davis asked. “Does that mean we are going to fly the crate up to Stone today?”
“I’d like to have the crate in place before I make my broadcast tonight,” Doc answered. “I also need to get a closer look at the area so I can tell the survivors where they can locate the crate after we drop it off.”
“I don’t think Rogers and I are ready for this yet,” Davis replied.
“You’ve been practicing for the last two weeks, right?” Doc asked.
“If you can call blowing up one simulator and totally wrecking two drones practice,” Davis said, “then we have been practicing, but I don’t think that means we’re ready to fly a real helicopter.”
“Speak for yourself,” Rogers grinned.
&
nbsp; “I’m speaking for both of us,” Davis said shooting Rogers a look. “Besides you’re the one that killed the simulator.”
Doc laughed, “Relax, I’ll give you a lesson in the helicopter before you go.”
“Doc, do you think that is wise?” Chervy asked looking worried.
“Like I said,” Doc grinned, “What we have in Bay #47 can fly itself. You’ll just be along for the ride.”
“A ride straight into the side of this mountain,” Davis mumbled.
“Get your gear, pack a lunch, grab a side arm and some ammo and meet me at the helicopter in an hour,” Doc said.
“OK,” Rogers and Davis replied warily as they got up and shuffled out of the room.
Chervy watched the men walk out of the room.
When they were gone, he turned to Doc.
“Doc, maybe you should fly this mission,” Chervy said. “I’m worried about those two.”
“They’ll be fine,” Doc smiled. “Besides, if they run into trouble, someone needs to be here to go rescue them. I would rather the two of them fly this mission than have to depend of them to come rescue me.”
“I don’t know Doc,” Chervy said nervously.
“Trust me Chervy,” Doc smiled. “It will be fine. This is how I learned to fly. No one is ready for their first flight, you just have to jump in and swim.”
“Or sink in this case,” Chervy added.
An hour later, everyone was gathered together in Bay #47.
Following Doc’s instruction, Reynolds and Connors secured the crate of food to the skids of the helicopter.
When they were done, Doc called Davis and Reynolds over to the helicopter.
“When you land, all you need to do is pull these two cords and the crate will drop to the ground,” Doc instructed. “Being this is your first mission, and there are many unknowns at this point, I just want you to land, drop the crate and come back to the facility, nothing more.”
